no mention of what he did on his "install" and crying sounds like a straw man to bait with.

sigh...

Sounds to me like maybe there is a problem with this version of Puppy Linux. Here's a radical idea: how about, instead of criticizing the messenger, you go find an old machine, and test the software, yourself.

There are no straw men, here. No baits. No crying. Just facts. The newest version of Puppy, Slacko, is a failure. Wary 5.2 works fine.

CAI ENG

CAI ENG

if you care to read the release you might find out what machines slacko is targeted.

you do not bother to mention what equipment your trying to use slacko on. nor what ver of slacko. there are two releases.

you imply your using an old machine but again no specifics and declare maybe there is a problem with this version.

your posts are definitive lacking any hint of doubt you may have done something to get the results you claim.

What I need is a version of Puppy designed to work with VLC. Is Slacko going to offer that capability?

From what I have seen, the answer is NO.

That's ok, if so, because I have confidence that eventually, Puppy will offer the best audio player, VLC, just as now, Puppy offers the sharpest, highest quality video display. Eventually, the junky stuff will be eliminated (remember the default from several years ago!!! wow. Even Amarok seemed better, and it had been certainly the second worst player ever conceived....

Did not observe any notes about installing VLC, or downloading VLC, and then installing it, so, if someone has a link to such information, I will look forward to reading same. In other distros I have used, the software is either already on the original cdrom, else, easily downloaded via Synaptic or something comparable. I have no such experience with Puppy, but, judging from the extent of my misunderstanding earlier today, of the target for SLACKO, and the community response, to that misunderstanding, I am not holding my breath.

P.S. In all the years (almost ten) I have installed various versions of Slackware, today is the first time I failed to use Lilo.

caeng, the 'PPM' is the Puppy Package Manager, Click 'Install' on the desktop, or find it in the menu... Once in the PPM, click on the VLC package (in the multimedia category) to install it, then load it by going to Menu->Multimedia->VLC or by typing 'vlc' in the terminal._________________Akita Linux, VLC-GTK, Pup Search, Pup File Search

There are elements of contention about the pronouncements of caieng, but the underlying concern that 'something has changed within the last month' is correct. Evidently he hasn't been reading my reports, either, although I am afraid I cannot claim '26 postings'. There are a few high profile guys around here, and on other fora, who simply won't have it that the distro they have latched onto doesn't always work and maybe worse than the last one that didn't work a bit better. On the other hand, there are a few gurus like mick0 and BK who try very hard to please, not to mention the guys beavering away on polish, apps development, etc who never take centre stage for their efforts. SW development is not an easy task. It requires immense dedication, persistence and a 25hr day. The rewards are miniscule (non-existent in US culture!).

But sometimes things head in the wrong direction. I cannot see the point of developing a compact distro that works on DWintel's latest tin box of junk or plastic slab. Their game is leverage and $$$, nothing else. That has not changed. Suckers keep lining up to empty their pockets into their coffers. Let's make an early New Year resolution to stop supporting them.

Ah yes, the nForce3 939. Well, it sort of works. Still no 'woofwoof because Retrovol needs its defaults setting and nothing is active until the Woofwoof panel is activated. This is an error in coding sequence or inappropriate delays being set - not my department. Browser will crash every time until the Mesa driver is loaded - this is a big file and ibiblio is slow this morning. I suspect that will resolve matters?
But at least I get a picture of sorts at start up! Bit of code tidying for this machine, but the others are a very different matter. It's an utter waste to run any Puppy on a 939 which is capable well beyond it's modest requirements.
Later: Nope, SM crashes even with the Mesa driver. Of course, Opera works without crashing, but it complains of no flashplayer even though I watched it being installed. Trying to install flashplayer from the repo still gives the 'broken link' message.
End of story till mick gets home. Over & out.

I cannot see the point of developing a compact distro that works on DWintel's latest tin box of junk or plastic slab.

Compactness as such is only one factor in deciding which OS to choose to run on a modern machine. Even if this system has more than enough welly to run the latest and greatest bloat-ware OS, I personally would choose Puppy because of its snapiness and most importantly, configurability in many aspects of its design concept. This efficiency has always been a characteristic of open source software - even the sort that runs under MS Windows.

If MS Windows was free (as in beer) and Puppy Linux cost money to buy, I'd pay up gladly for a copy of Puppy. I'm dreading the thought of this new MS idea regarding Windows 8, whereby you'd need an encryption key to be able to boot Linux at all. I sincerely hope this idea never gets to see the light of day.

Yes, I really wonder why otherwise intelligent folk seem ready to queue up to line the pockets of the likes of Apple and MS for what is (at best) no better than Puppy and usually much the inferior in many aspects._________________Life is too short to spend it in front of a computer

caeng, the 'PPM' is the Puppy Package Manager, Click 'Install' on the desktop, or find it in the menu... Once in the PPM, click on the VLC package (in the multimedia category) to install it, then load it by going to Menu->Multimedia->VLC or by typing 'vlc' in the terminal.

Thank you very much for this excellent instruction.

I will have some more time, this weekend, and will try again!!!!

I think I may have also misunderstood the target audience for Slacko:

The kernel seems to be 32 bit, not 64? (686 is what I read), so that is a tiny bit mysterious.

My 1 GHZ PIII is a 686, but, clearly, this OS will not work, as I desire, i.e. with proper video display, on that architecture.

But, on the other hand, it also will not function correctly in a multi-core cpu running as a multi threaded OS, if it is designed for the 686.

So, I remain confused about the target audience, and am especially concerned, and therefore submit this message to the forum, that Puppy may render a disservice to itself, by touting Slacko, to folks, like me, who imagine that this is a 686 appropriate OS, representing some improvements compared with Wary 5.2.

I urge those responsible for development of this variation of the Puppy lineage, to reassess the purpose of this distro, or, at least, send an updated message to distrowatch.com, as this is the locale from which new folks will encounter Slacko. Such a message needs to clarify the intended target, and explain that notwithstanding the 686 character of the kernel, it is inappropriate for many 686 machines.

It would also be useful, for those of us with those old machines, if the VLC capabilities found in Slacko, as described so clearly above, could be applied to the realm of Wary 5.2, since that is the OS to which those of us with 686 architecture are apparently condemned.

been running 5.3 on one of my everyday machines (amd duron 800mhz) (late 90's manufacture) for 24 hours now without problem, installed VLC 1.1.11 and firefox 7.01 (posting from it now) and they are working without problem. I have not even tried to install flashplayer as its requirements are well above my systems specs (just have a look at flashplayer's hardware requirements on the adobe site) and I think mick made the right decision not to support it. resource wise it is using the same if not less than any other modern puppy 30 to 40mb of ram at rest.

anybody that is having problems with ibiblio should try nluug as it mirrors all of ibiblio's site and normally downloads are much quicker. (for me here in the uk anyway).

My 1 GHZ PIII is a 686, but, clearly, this OS will not work, as I desire, i.e. with proper video display, on that architecture.

Does it not work at all? Or does it not work automatically? I do often find that I have to fine tune the resolution to get things how I like it. I have a full HD monitor, so puppy goes straight to 1920 x 1080, but that is too small for me to use. It can be changed easily enough by using xorgwizard.

Quote:

But, on the other hand, it also will not function correctly in a multi-core cpu running as a multi threaded OS, if it is designed for the 686.

Again, sometimes sound needs to be set up to work properly. Unfortunately, no Linux distribution will work perfectly on all hardware. However, no OS will either. In fact, the final straw with windows for me, was a hard drive that crashed on an old PC that had XP on it. Upon reinstall of windows, I had no sound, no network, and poor graphics. Being an older computer, I had no idea where the driver disks were to get these things working, so instead put puppy on that PC and EVERYTHING worked for me.

Quote:

So, I remain confused about the target audience, and am especially concerned, and therefore submit this message to the forum, that Puppy may render a disservice to itself, by touting Slacko, to folks, like me, who imagine that this is a 686 appropriate OS, representing some improvements compared with Wary 5.2.

I agree with you, and 01micko , the developer of slacko, has stated that this is designed for newer hardware. The term newer hardware is somewhat subjective, and 686 doesn't necessarily help with that, as it is actually quite an old architecture.
Remember with Puppy, there is a lot of parallel development, Wary is being developed separately to Slacko, and have different objectives, as well as different developers.

Quote:

It would also be useful, for those of us with those old machines, if the VLC capabilities found in Slacko, as described so clearly above, could be applied to the realm of Wary 5.2, since that is the OS to which those of us with 686 architecture are apparently condemned.

Iguleder has posted a recent work around that could be useful for getting VLC to work nicely in Wary. Part of the problem with VLC, like some other programs eg chrome, is that it doesn't like to run as root, which Puppy runs as, hence the issues.